When Nadia Nadarajah takes the stage at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre from tonight as Cleopatra, she will fulfil a longheld dream: to show others how far you can go as ‘a deaf brown woman who uses sign language and doesn’t speak’
he day before our interview, in a third-floor studio decked out like a 1990s school gym, I get a brief glimpse of actor Nadia Nadarajah in action. It’s just gone 2pm, late in this unique production of’s third rehearsal week of four. Opening night is just weeks away, next door in the 1,500 capacity Shakespeare’s Globe. Printouts line the walls: sketches of costumes; history factsheets; headshots of the 50+ strong on and off-stage team.
Once a sign translation is agreed, each needs logging. “I learned how to write in BSL,” she says, “even though it’s not a written language. We’ll film ourselves signing each line, before I make a written note.” Nadarajah opens a burgundy file folder, revealing her script inside. On one side of each printed page is the Shakespearean English, with contextual notes below it. Directly opposite, in her neat handwriting, sits its corresponding BSL.
Before the end of year seven, she’d transferred to a deaf-specific boarding school in Berkshire. She flourished. “A lot of deaf schools have closed,” she says. “Now, lots of people think sending deaf children to them is not a good idea. But I had a great experience.” Not that her five years there were challenge-free. “The teachers wanted everyone to use speech,” she remembers. “I tried, but my speech wasn’t brilliant.
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